Not My Kid, Not My Problem…Until It is.

I’m walking out of the gym, laughing about what my coach said about my deadlift. I step out into the sun and reach into my gym bag to pull out my phone. I flip up the screen, turn off the do not disturb button, and instantly my phone is bombarded with texts, all from my kids and my husband. The first one that comes through is:

“If I don’t make it I love you and I appreciated everything you did for me.”

It’s my high school senior. The one who just signed a commitment to UC Denver and put a deposit down on her first apartment. There’s an active shooter at her high school.

As you might have guessed by now, this didn’t happen to me. But it happened to hundreds of parents in Parkland, Florida this week. I made myself imagine it. I made myself imagine my kid in that school, because if it happened in Parkland, in Sandy Hook, at Virginia Tech, it could happen in Fort Collins. Hell, it happened right down the road in Columbine, Colorado.

But I also did another imagination exercise. I imagined the life of Nikolas Cruz leading up to February 14, 2018. We don’t know a lot, but the details emerging are disturbing: history of threats and violent behavior, death of both parents (adoptive, which means he had biological parents no longer in the picture), teasing and torturing animals, expelled from middle school, etc, etc, etc.

Nikolas Cruz is 19, the same age as my daughter (who I’m not sure has ever stepped on a spider, and wouldn’t know where to begin to look for a gun to purchase).

I’m going to take a leap here because I work with kids who are on their way to becoming Nikolas Cruz’s. I’m going to guess that Nikolas Cruz has an extremely high ACEs score. ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experience. Examples are poverty, neglect, abandonment, and abuse. The more we learn about childhood trauma, the more we find that an ACE, or in many cases, multiple ACEs, are predictors for all sorts of bad outcomes: health problems, chronic anxiety, and antisocial behavior, to name a few.

In her TED Talk, “How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime,” Dr. Nadine Burke Harris details how trauma can actually change a child’s biology, making them more susceptible to everything from asthma to heart disease, to cancer. This should be enough to wake us up.

But even more insidiously, a high ACEs score can lead to violent behavior, especially in boys. In the California Health Report article, “Pipeline to Prison May Start with Childhood Trauma,” Leah Bartos notes:

“According to figures from the National Institute of Justice, abuse or neglect in childhood raised the chances of juvenile arrest by 59 percent. The likelihood of criminal behavior in adulthood increased by 28 percent and violent crime by 30 percent, according to another study cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”1

My point is, kids are falling through the cracks.

From what we currently know, there were a lot of people concerned about Nikolas Cruz for a long time, but the concerns weren’t put together or acted upon. It seems to me the buck got passed from adult to adult, no one wanting to take responsibility and do something about it. And believe me, when you’re faced with a raging, antisocial teenager, the last thing you want to do is place yourself directly in the line of fire. It’s frightening to see.

But I’m also here to tell say – there’s hope.

The California Health Report affirms this. Dr. Burke, the pediatrician mentioned earlier, has begun screening every child that comes through her office for ACEs. She then puts a network in place around kids who are at risk and follows through.

Again, from the CHR: “Many of the kids who end up in the juvenile justice system, the vast majority of them have been exposed to high doses of adversity,” said Nadine Burke Harris, CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness and a pediatrician. Screening is the key to prevention, not just for illness but for jail time, too. “We’re looking at it from a health standpoint, but we know for a fact that if we’re screening for ACEs and doing effective intervention, it’s going to impact justice outcomes.”2

I’m lucky to be involved with one of those service providers that intervene in cases like this. At Hearts and Horses, we have a program called “Changing Leads” where we speak life and truth into at risk teens. We don’t care that you threw the principal’s laptop through a window last week, or beat up a girl on the bus. We’re interested in what you can be right now for your horse. Who do you want to be when you’re your best self? I can help you with that. Watch:

And there are so many other types of intervention programs out there that can identify kids who are emerging at risk, and step in at a critical and vulnerable time in their life.

So what needs to be done?

Screening – we need to catch these kids early and often

Support Network – there must be resources and a system in place that follows through

Mentorship – Yes, I’m looking at you. Can you volunteer? Studies show that one person who shows up for a child, when they’re used to being let down, can change the trajectory of that child’s life.

Money – Our social welfare system is overburdened and overworked. Social workers often have more cases than they can possibly look into, and burnout and turnover are high.

It’s not difficult, but it’s complex. There are so many cogs in the wheel, and the problem seems so out of hand, that it’s easy to turn our attention to something else and let someone else deal with it.

But these sorts of murders at high schools – OUR high schools with OUR children, will continue happening until we address why young men are shooting their peers in mass. They won’t stop until we each do what we can, making healthy children, mentally and physically, a priority.

Maybe that means volunteering with me as a mentor at Hearts and Horses. Maybe being a Big Brother or Big Sister or coaching basketball once a week at the city rec center. Or maybe you can donate $10 a month to an organization that is doing the work.

I’m reading a book right now called Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship. The author is a Jesuit priest, Gregory Boyle, who lives and serves in downtown Los Angeles. He has single handedly pulled hundreds of gang members out of the streets and shown them another way through his organization, Homeboy Industries. (If you want a read that will light a fire under you and give you hope, I highly recommend it.)

He tells the story of a young man in the program. He writes, “A homie once told me, as he was finishing our training program, ‘I feel like I fell in ‘like’ with myself here.’ At Homeboy, I suppose the “task” is attachment repair, but it’s really about looking into each other’s eyes and pulling each other across the expanse of a desk and seeing what God sees. This generosity with each other is gratuitous and abundant and who God is.”

I don’t know Nikolas Cruz, but I wonder how his life could have been different had someone like Gregory Boyle dropped in when he was 10 or 14, or even 18.

I can’t stop the next mass shooting. But, I can be a Father Boyle to a child in my community, pulling them into my eyes and showing them that the world has love and generosity and kindness, even for them.

15 Comments

I’m really glad you wrote this article cause it really made me think about this issue in a new way.

It feels like after year after year of these shootings most of us have just stopped paying attention and let it fade into the background radiation of bad news you just can’t do much about, and I’ve started to think this way too cause it gets so frustrating after a while of hearing about this every few weeks.

It’s pretty important that we keep taking action to remedy the root cause, and you addressed this in such an effective way that I hope will open up more people’s eyes. We can’t afford to become jaded about this issue when there is still action we can take to make things better. You definitely reminded me of that just now.

Adam, thank you so much for reading, and for your thoughtful comment. Sometimes I get weary of waiting for people my age to do something about this. I was very inspired by people your age and their thoughts about what should be done. We’re going to do our best to keep you safe, and we’re counting on you to change the world! xos Deb

The rhetoric gets so frustrating! Thank you so much for giving us something we can DO!!! I love volunteering in Elise’s class for a lot of these same reasons. I began because I wanted to help her. I’ll admit, it’s hard stepping out of my comfort zone and facing a lot of needy kids! But when I see the difference SHE makes, and I see the love they devour from ME, it is life changing!! The kids from years past still see me and run to give me a hug and ask if I’ve brought cookies!

Thank you too honey for your insight into kids who are unloved, unwanted, abused, etc. etc. etc… It just makes my heart hurt! It is so prevalent that I don’t know where to begin! But, I guess you just begin one child at a time, right?

Deb, I love what you have to say. I believe this problem has so many levels and layers but as you say, it starts with one. One of us reaching out to one one of them. We can do this without involving politicians or trying to change the way someone else thinks. Without arguing or debating. One heart and soul reaching out to another. I believe strongly in the trauma theory you speak of. Dale and I have come across many young(and not so young) people in our lives that just needed someone to care in a non judgemental way. I hope everyone hears your challenge and steps up to just help one. I still have a strong belief on the power of one.

Hi, Debi. This is your Aunt Susan. I did not know you were doing this kind of work. You are such a wonderful, compassionate woman. I have been searching for some answers about myself. I stumbled on and posted on FB a presentation by Nadine Burke Harris just yesterday. It was like a cymbals went off in my head. And the very next day, today, I find this article via your mom and Larry. I took the ACE quiz and my score was 9. As the oldest child in our very dysfunctional childhood, I had to be the strong one. I fought for my siblings to try to protect them. I could go on and on with the crappy childhood experiences. So I built a box that all the bad stuff could go in. I put that box with a lock on a
very high shelf in my heart and mind. Over the years there was some leakage from the box, but I just tightened the lock. Forward to Lonnie, bypassing the teen years because that’s a whole other story. I was determined to be the best wife ever. Then super mom to my kids, leaving that tightly locked box on the shelf. Then I had to be the best student when I went back to school. Then the best ever EA working with special ed children. Then being the best 24-7 caretaker for Lonnie. I was looking for him and heard the shot. It was the most horrible thing ever seeing him like that. He was my partner, my best friend, the love of my life for 42 years. I lost my memory for much of the year before and then after. I have a host of health issues, some from before like my ever present migraine for 30 years, and some new ones. I have PTSD now with mostly all the symptoms. I can’t seem to pull myself out of it. I was terrible with helping my kids with their grief. A quote that hit home with me “Grief broke me and I lost myself.” I only feel safe here at my home. I have become a hermit. My reason for writing you: Do you think my ACEs in the box has broken apart and is now part of my PTSD? April 23 will be 4 years. I dream of him every night. I even wake myself talking to him. I have been in counseling but am looking for someone now. Socorro doesn’t offer much. In fact, talk therapy doesn’t do much besides keep it in the forefront. Can you suggest any other kind of treatment? I am looking into video psychology. I didn’t realize I was going to write you a book. Love you, Debi.

First of all, thank you for sharing and I’m really sorry to hear about the horrible experiences you went through. No kid should have to deal with that. It sounds like you developed a lot of coping strategies through the years. I am not a therapist – I let the horses do that work for me. But from everything I’ve read and learned, ACEs and PTSD go hand in hand. Absolutely. I’m a big fan of equine therapy, of course, but my daughter had a lot of luck with EMDR. It helped her quite a bit. I don’t know if that’s available in your area? Again, I’m not a therapist; I wish I could help more. Know you are loved!

Thank you for listening, Deb. It was just so coincidental that I posted something about ACEs and Nadine Burke Harris, and the next day find your essay talking about the exact same thing, including citing her presentation. As to why I wrote you, knowing that you are not a therapist, was just because I wondered if you had encountered anyone with buried ACEs and then later had a major trauma with resulting PTSD. And would the PTSD awaken the buried ACEs and combine to make me into a bowl of goulash? So then any therapy would need to address both. I thank you for listening and believe that this conservation has helped. Now I am better prepared to find someone to help me. My last therapist helped me and we touched on EMDR before saying he thought he couldn’t go any farther with me after a year and a half. I needed something deeper. I always said that my childhood made me stronger, but I guess I have work to do on my 9 ACEs. Thanks so much for listening. Love you, Debi.

From what I understand, yes, ACEs can make you very vulnerable to this stuff the rest of your life. I think that’s why it’s so heart wrenching and why early intervention is so important! I’ll do some more research as well and if I come across anything promising, I’ll pass it along. Meanwhile, reaching out to all of us who love you is a great first step! Love you, too. I have such fond memories of your house as a child.